Wed, 21 Nov 2012

Cranberry Sauce for Cheesecake

I'm being dragged to a Thanksgiving Day dinner with a friend, and am taking along a cheesecake. I wanted to make a topping for it, and in the theme of the day, why not make it with cranberries?

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the water, sugar, corn starch and citrus juices (if you don't want lumps, shake the water and corn starch together in a jar first). Stir over heat until you have syrup. In another bowl, plop out your cranberry sauce and stir to losen it up and break up any big chunks of gel. Add to the syrup.

Continue stirring, reducing the heat to low, until it becomes thick. Add the vodka, bitters and butter, stirring until the butter is totally melted and incorporated. Taste, and add more sugar to your liking.

Not sure how I feel about it, although it does remind me of a tart cherry sauce. We'll see tomorrow how well it goes with cheesecake.

Posted at: 21:21 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Tue, 04 Sep 2012

Oatmeal, with STUFF

I mix this up the night before, shove it in the fridge, and heat it in the microwave the next morning.

Posted at: 23:22 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Peanut Butter and Nutella, with STUFF

This was roughly made tonight, because I was bored and hadn't gone grocery shopping yet. Really tasty — tasty enough that after grocery shopping two of these sandwiches are my lunch for tomorrow.

Very rough estimates, I mostly just glooped stuff together.

Mix well. It helps if you heat up the peanut butter and Nutella in the microwave, then add the rest and stir. Just be careful, when the pb and Nutella get's hot, it's basically like napalm. Spread on toast. Enjoy.

Posted at: 23:21 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Wed, 22 Aug 2012

Simple Dip

No measurements: take a container of sour cream, add nutritional yeast (lots), paprika (medium), liquid smoke (medium), onion powder (little). Throw in some salt and pepper. Stir well. Enjoy.

Posted at: 22:37 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Thu, 21 Jun 2012

Waldorfish Salad

-ish, because the classic version of this includes celery, which I do not, and uses mayonaise, which I also do not. But it's pretty close, very simple to make, and incredibly tasty on hot summer days.

Core and cube the apples. Pull the grapes off the stems, add to the bowl. Roughly chop the walnuts, add them. Add enough yogurt to lightly coat everything.

Good right away, keeps for a couple days. Enjoy.

Posted at: 19:10 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Thu, 31 May 2012

Avocado Spread

Smush together. Spread on toast or crackers. Enjoy.

Posted at: 20:37 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Sat, 05 May 2012

Avocado Choclate Pie

As a riff on the Avocado Pudding recipe I discussed back in March, here's a pie that combines it and chocolate. Because, really, how can you go wrong with "pie" and "chocolate" in the same dish?

Combine all of these in a double-boiler or in a heat-proof glass bowl placed over a saucepan of boiling water. Stir until all melted and completely smooth. Add chili powder to taste — make it a little bit spicier than you want; you'll be eating this chilled which will dull the taste a bit. Note: you will do this phase twice, so you need twice as much ingredients as listed.

Juice the lemons and limes and put them in a bowl. Pit the avocados and scoop out the flesh, dropping it in the bowl of citrus juice and stirring as you go (this will help keep the flesh from turning brown). Pour that all in a blender and pulse until things are mostly broken up, Add th sweetened condensed milk, and blend until things are very smooth.

Make one batch of the chocolate phase, pour into the bottom of the crust, and chill completely. Make the avocado phase and scoop it on top, leaving at least an eighth of an inch space from the top of the avocado to the top of the crust. Chill that completely. Make the second match of the chocolate phase, pour on top and smooth out. Chill the whole thing completely.

Posted at: 00:06 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Wed, 25 Apr 2012

Peanut Brassicas

Building on the last recipe I posted, for peanut sauce, here's a perfect way to use it.

Put a bit of water and a steamer basket in a big pot, get that going. Cut florets from the broccoli (this works best if you turn the stalk upside down and trim florets off). I trim the unappealing bits off the remaining stalk and cut it into half-centimeter slices. Throw that in the steamer once it gets going.

Trim the cauliflower and throw that in, followed by the pea pods. Let it steam until the stems on the broccoli and cauliflower are just sharp (test with a sharp thin knife). Throw in the kale (remove the large stem pieces first) and steam a minute more.

Put in a large bowl, dump on some peanut sauce, and stir. No real measurments to speak of, but I did one-half head cauliflower to two stalks broccoli to a small hand of pea pods to a large handful of kale.

Posted at: 19:02 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Fri, 20 Apr 2012

Peanut Sauce, Pt 1

I absolutely love Vietnamese summer rolls, and about fifty per-cent of that love comes from the fact that they are a socially acceptable reason to eat a shitton of peanut sauce. After throwing some together for dinner tonight, here's an ad-hoc peanut sauce recipe.

Mix the peanut butter, chili sauce and hoisen, then stick it in the microwave for a minute or two to warm it up and make it much easier to mix. Mix with the vinegar and oil, then add water to the desired consistency — between 1/2 and 3/4 of a cup seems about right.

Posted at: 19:18 | category: /food/2012 | Link

Wed, 21 Mar 2012

Homemade Cottage Cheese

I've been wanting to do this for some time, ever since I came across the recipe on Good Eats.

In a large pot, bring the milk up to 120 deg. F. Slowly add the vinegar while gently stirring. Shortly you'll feel the milk start to thicken and then see the curds separate from the whey. Stir for a couple of minutes.

Cover and let sit for 30 minutes. Strain the curds out of the whey by pouring through a colander lined with a clean tea towel. Let it drain for five minutes, then rinse with cold water until it's completely cooled.

Chop it up into your desired curd size, add salt to taste and the heavy cream to get it to the consistency you want. If you're not going to eat it right away, hold off this step until you are.

Tomorrow night: using the saved whey to make ricotta cheese.

Posted at: 22:08 | category: /food/2012 | Link